Suppose

A popular joke is that a physicist, a chemist, and an economist are stranded on a desert island with their only food a sealed can of beans. The two physical scientists suggest precise procedures for opening the can. The economist says he has an easier method: “Suppose we have a can opener!” Just so one might wonder about the ethics I have proposed: desirism. Is it something feasible or only a “suppose”? And if just a suppose, then how could it be an ethics? I myself have stressed that any ethics must be practical, which is to say, practicable. And there are several grounds for doubting that desirism is practicable.

            Most essentially, desirism is a form of amoralism, indeed, an extreme form, which not only denies the existence of morality but also, unlike most anti-realist amoralisms, recommends dispensing with all remnants of the belief in morality, including moral language like “right” and “wrong” and “should and “ought” and even “good” and “bad.” (Indeed, in a further extension, the theory is committed to eliminating all unqualified assertions of any kind, even nonmoral ones such as “The Earth orbits the Sun.”) But, the objection goes, it is just not plausible that the average person will ever be able to rid themself so thoroughgoingly of a belief in morality, that is, objective values. It might not be possible for anyone, even any real-life desirist (who would therefore be only an aspiring desirist) – akin to there being no atheists in foxholes. By my own testimony, morality is intuitive and pervasive.

            But I do have a reply, to wit: Desirism is surely an ideal, but ideals can have real-world utility. Furthermore, when you get right down to it, and as Socrates (or Plato) pointed out, nothing in the world is perfect. So long as it is understood, therefore, that desirism is intended only as a way of life to be striven for like any other that might be recommended, the objection is really a non-issue. In particular, surely no (sane) moralist would claim that it is easy to be a thoroughly moral person. Just so, no (sane) amoralist would claim the same for amoralism. In fact both have their (as it happens, complementary) bête noire: Moralists must forever resist (the temptation of) desire,[1] and desirists must forever resist (the siren call of) morality.[2]


[1] “I know I shouldn’t, but I just can’t resist.”

[2] It feels so sweet to condemn others and reckon oneself superior, or even at times to beg forgiveness for oneself.

Popular posts from this blog

Closing the Gaps

There are a couple of gaps of reasoning in my general account of desirism, which I have just thought of a way of closing. First let me remind my reader that desirism takes two forms: There are a psychological claim and an ethical recommendation. Thus, what might be called psychological desirism is the claim that moral judgments are caused by desires; or I could put it the other way and say that desires give rise to moral claims. So for example if someone wants or likes world peace, then, I claim, they will be prone to judge as wrong the violation of peace and as bad the perpetrator of such a violation. And, in the same vein, if we judge something or someone wrong or bad, I would assume that the actual cause of the judgment is some desire, whether we know it or not.  The second form of desirism is ethical desirism, or desirism proper, which is the recommendation that we forgo making, or at least ignore, judgments of right and wrong and good and bad (etc.) and focus entirely on the...
Read more

Who Is more likely to be a psychopath: the rational moralist or the emotional amoralist?

  In the Afterword to the 2011 Edition of his book The Expanding Circle (Princeton University Press), Peter Singer makes the extraordinary admission that he has seen the light about the problematic nature of objective morality. Nevertheless he ends by cleaving to it, after providing an extremely weak argument, namely that even though a moral reason is not inherently motivating, we will nevertheless, at least in certain circumstance\s, find a moral reason to be compelling, that is, rational. To me this argument sounds almost (?) circular.  But what is even more salient for me is Singer’s conception of the rational as something that is quite distinct from what he calls the “emotional.” “[W]hether a belief gives us reasons to do something is a normative question, and whether it motivates us to do it is a psychological question.” “[I]f we can accept the idea of objective moral truths, we do have an alternative to reliance on everyday moral intuitions that, according to the bes...
Read more

Eating of the Tree: The phenomenology of the moral moment

I would like to compile a set of examples of experiences that convey the moral problem , by which I mean the irresistibility of believing in moral truth when (1) in fact there is no (such thing as) moral truth and (2) the belief that there is causes serious problems in human and group (on up to international) relations. These examples will also suggest an amoral solution to the moral problem.  Here is one such example:  The dogs are barking. Day in and day out, day and night, two white dogs owned by a neighbor down the street bark and bark and bark. All the rest of us on the block are annoyed, some seriously (especially on summer evenings when you are trying to get to sleep with the windows open), and several have asked that the dogs be kept indoors or else trained; but the neighbor has ignored us. Some of us have then complained to the dog warden, who has visited and even remonstrated with the neighbor more than once; but ultimately to no avail. I suppose the treatment of t...
Read more